Saturday, June 26, 2010

With Congress having finalized a strong Wall Street reform bill, the President urges Congress to finish the job and send the bill to his desk. The legislation reflects 90% of what the President originally proposed, including the strongest consumer financial protections in history with an independent agency to enforce them. It ensures that the trading of derivatives, which helped trigger this crisis, will be brought into the light of day, and enacts the “Volcker Rule,” which will make sure banks protected by safety nets like the FDIC cannot engage in risky trades. It also creates a resolution authority to wind down firms whose collapse would threaten the entire financial system. Wall Street reform will end taxpayer funded bailouts and make sure Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street’s mistakes.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

And they think they can get votes out of doing this? While apologizing to BP for putting aside 20B for the Gulf Coast residents?

Whose side are they really on?

Senate Republicans killed legislation to extend unemployment benefits, provide aid to state governments and increase taxes on buyout fund managers, saying it would add too much to the federal deficit.

The vote was 57-41 in favor of the measure with 60 needed to advance it. Democrats had repeatedly trimmed the bill in an effort to gain votes. The version voted on today would have added $33 billion to the deficit, a fraction of previous proposals, though Republicans said the cost-cutting didn’t go far enough.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said earlier today that if the legislation failed, lawmakers would move on to other matters. He said the chamber could revisit the matter later if Republican support emerged.

“We can’t pass it unless we get some Republicans,” Reid said. “It’s up to them.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said “the only thing Democrats are insisting on in this debate is that we add to the debt.”

The impasse means unemployment benefits will be cut off to more than 1 million Americans by the end of this week, according to the Labor Department.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A federal judge Tuesday ruled against the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill. The White House, which had hoped the ban would provide time to ensure other wells are operating safely, immediately said it would appeal.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by drilling companies to reverse the ban imposed by the Department of Interior, which halted the approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling at 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

A federal judge in Louisiana granted the drillers' request for a preliminary restraining order that would prevent the ban from taking effect until a trial is held. He did not set a trial date.

The move comes a day after General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, apologized for comments by his aides insulting some of President Barack Obama's closest advisers in an article to be published in Rolling Stone magazine.

The controversy comes at an inopportune time for Obama, who already is dealing with huge BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, trying to get financial industry reform legislation through Congress and hoping to prevent Republicans from taking back control of Congress in November elections.

An Obama administration official said McChrystal had been directed to appear in person at Wednesday's Afghanistan meeting at the White House "to explain to the Pentagon and the commander-in-chief his quotes in the piece about his colleagues."

In the eight-page article, released to reporters on Monday ahead of publication, McChrystal appears to belittle Vice President Joe Biden and accuses Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, of undermining his war plan within the administration.

Asked by the Rolling Stone reporter about what he now feels of the war strategy advocated by Biden last fall – fewer troops, more drone attacks – the article reports that McChrystal and his aides attempted to come up with a good one-liner to dismiss the question. “Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” McChrystal reportedly jokes. “Who’s that?”

Later in the article, McChrystal turns more serious when asked about cables sent last fall to Washington by Eikenberry. The cables called into question the major troop increase advocated by McChrystal’s team and the U.S.’s backing of Afghan President Hamid Karzai – views that the ambassador had not previously raised with McChrystal or his staff.

“I like Karl, I’ve known him for years, but they’d never said anything like that to us before,” McChrystal is quoted as saying. “Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, ‘I told you so.’”

The article, titled “The Runaway General,” has already caused nervousness inside the Pentagon, where memories are still fresh of another blistering profile that got a top commander in hot water: an August 2008 cover story in Esquire on Adm. William “Fox” Fallon, then commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. The article eventually played a part in Fallon’s resignation two years ago.

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